Night curfew would be back in Uttar Pradesh From December 25 owing to rising cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, the government said on Friday. It would be from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. A maximum of 200 persons would be allowed to gather in marriage functions and other social events. The decision was taken keeping in mind the increase in Coronavirus cases in other States.
“In such a situation, some stringent steps are required,” the government stated.
The decision comes a day after an Allahabad High Court judge requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Election Commission of India (ECI) to immediately ban rallies and public meetings of political parties and consider postponing the 2022 Assembly elections owing to rising Omicron cases.
The court requested the ECI to possibly postpone the polls, scheduled to be held in February, by one or two months. Citing news reports of increasing COVID-19 cases and deaths, the court observed, “the third wave is at our doorstep”.
The government noted that it tested 1.91 lakh samples over the past 24 hours, out of which only 49 were positive. The active cases stood at 266 and 37 out of 75 districts in the State have no COVID-19 cases.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has instructed officials to once again activate the “nigrani samitis” in village and urban wards to track COVID-19 cases in preparation of a possible “third wave” of the infection.
He asked for a close watch to be kept on the health of those coming from outside the State after testing them, and if required, they should be admitted to hospitals or be quarantined, the senior official said.
Monitoring committees did a commendable job in coronavirus management in the past, and directives have been issued to reactivate them in villages and urban wards, he said.
The Chief Minister said that in view of the possibility of a third wave of COVID-19, the State made systematic preparations in the past which needed to be re-examined. Facilities available at all government and private medical institutions of the State should be examined closely, and the Covid help desk and the day care centre in industrial units should be activated, he said.
(With inputs from PTI)
Published - December 24, 2021 02:41 pm IST
